The Rose of York (14 page)

There, on the eve of her coronation, she rewarded Edward with a night of lovemaking more violent and passionate than any he had ever known.

~*~

Jacquetta watched her daughter’s graceful figure enter Westminster Abbey under a canopy of gold cloth borne on silver spears. Bess carried a sceptre in each hand and her gilt hair flowed over her ermine cloak and scarlet robe. Beaming, she followed Bess’s train, borne by the King’s sister Meg. Wariness crept into her pride when they entered Westminster Abbey and her gaze fell on the King’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence. In crimson and cloth of gold, and mounted on a stallion caparisoned with gold spangles and embroidered velvet, he rode through Westminster Hall, making way for the queen to be led before the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of the King’s two brothers, Richard of Gloucester had stayed away on some pretext or other, and though George had come, he’d been vociferous in his condemnation of the marriage. Edward’s tongue-lashing had cowed him into submission for the time being, but she feared George’s good behaviour wouldn’t last.

Jacquetta stiffened at the moment of crowning and held her breath until she thought her lungs would burst. When the blue-veined old hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury set the crown on her daughter’s head, she exhaled with such violence that she thought all Westminster had heard. Her head swam, the light falling through the brilliant coloured windows blinded her sight, and her face felt as if it would split with the breadth of her smile.
Her daughter was Queen of England!

When she finally recovered her composure, she became aware of the dark looks around her. She glanced uneasily from the old craggy face of Archbishop Bourchier to the young Neville next to him. The new Archbishop of York was the only Neville present. Warwick was conveniently away on a trade mission to Burgundy and his brother John was chasing down Holy Harry somewhere in the North. She pressed her lips together. The Nevilles were trouble. Bess must watch them.

In response to a gesture from her daughter, Jacquetta stepped forward and lifted the heavy crown from Bess’s brow. During the long ceremony she performed the service several times. Though Bess exchanged the crown for a coronet at the banquet, even that proved such a crushing weight that she removed it while she dined. As Jacquetta listened to the music from a hundred minstrels and tasted one of the sixty dishes served at the feast, she heard the tittering and the snickers. “The crown would not sit on her low-born head!” they whispered.
Pardieu
, people were always whispering. Not until the next day when she attended the tournament did the whispers concern her. There had been a prophecy, the whispers said, made by a ragged old woman outside the jousting ground. She gave a shudder as she took her seat in the crimson-striped royal loge with her husband. The wise woman had crossed herself when Bess had passed and said, “Where she treads, evil follows, and as the Crown tottered on her head so will England totter beneath her weight.”

Jacquetta was superstitious, and for good reason. On several occasions she found herself foretelling events that later came true. She hugged her fur-lined mantle closer, only dimly aware of the braying of trumpets and the marshals shouting the rules for the melee.
The wise woman has to be wrong
, she told herself. As mistaken as those who’d foretold disaster for Edward because he’d chosen to be crowned on Childermas, the ill-omened anniversary of the massacre of the innocent babes by Herod. So unlucky was it considered that the King of France refused even to discuss business on Holy Innocents Day.

Yet Edward was secure on the throne. All was well.

She rested her eyes on him. He was in high spirits, laughing, making jests, and drinking frequently from a gem-studded golden cup presented by one of his Knights of the Body. Edward cared as little for unlucky days as he did for holy days, and he had insisted on being crowned on that Sabbath because it suited him.

We worry too much, mon Dieu
, she thought.
’Tis the times, they are so uncertain
. She adjusted her veil to shield her from the bright sun. The heralds yelled “
Laissez allez!
” and scampered from the field. Trumpets brayed again and two knights rode in, one in shining black armour, the other a gigantic figure in silver. They took up their stance at opposing ends of the field, lances in hand. Hoofs thundered and dust rose as they ran the course, then came the shock of steel and groans of disappointment from the crowd, for neither knight was unhorsed. Furnished with fresh lances by darting squires, they cantered into position once more.

As she turned to watch the second course, she noticed the dagger glances slyly cast at her and the snickers quickly checked from the adjoining loges. Many among the crowd of old nobility resented them, but today she was determined to enjoy her happiness and dwell only on the positive. Had untold honours not been heaped on her family these past eight months?

A loud chorus interrupted her reverie. The black knight had been unhorsed and the silver pronounced the winner. Hoisted to his feet by his squires, the black knight strutted angrily off the field as the silver knight advanced to the royal box for his prize. “Well done, Cheyney!” cried the King, tossing him a jewelled medal of St. George. “A fair course!” Twenty more knights entered the field on foot for the general melee and hand-tohand combat. The prize was a ruby to the winner.

Amid the cheers of the crowd and periodic blare of the heralds’ trumpets, Jacquetta’s glance swept the boxes and rested proudly on her brood of thirteen children. Thanks to Bess, they had all made splendid marriages.
Pardieu
, but no one could fault her for not looking out for her family! One daughter had married a duke, one an earl, and four had married earl’s sons. Her eldest boy, Anthony, was now a baron, having wed the heiress of Lord Scales. Another had married the richest duchess in the kingdom; yet another was betrothed to the King’s niece, who had earlier been promised to John Neville’s new-born son.

Jacquetta smiled inwardly. Warwick’s humiliation of her husband still rankled her after all these years and it gave her pleasure to see the Nevilles brought low. She patted her husband’s hand. He cast her a smile and her harsh thoughts fled. After all, they’d had the last laugh. Lord Rivers was now Earl Rivers and riches had gushed into their hands. She turned her eyes to the centrepiece of the lavish ceremony: cool, remote, beautiful Bess, seated on her velvet chair in the centre of their row. Once she had been lady-in-waiting to a queen; now she herself was queen. Her daughter was not only the fairest in the land, but very clever, she thought, reflecting on their conversation earlier that day…

“To think,
ma fille
, of all that is now yours,” Jacquetta mused as she clasped a necklace of flashing gems around Bess’s smooth white throat. “The crown imperial of gold and pearls to which my husband, the Duke of Bedford, was heir would have made me queen. Now you are the queen in my place. When I fell from grace, I had no relatives to protect me. Now our relatives are everywhere and the land complains of it! How strange is life— as if it turns in circles as it moves along. ’Tis like a dream.”

“Nay, ’tis the Wheel of Fortune, and the Wheel can bring us down again as quickly as it took us up,” Bess replied. “What you lost and I won back has come to us at a cost—everyone is against us. They say I’m lowborn. That I’m not good enough to be queen.”

“That will change now we are linked in marriage to the most powerful of the noble families.”

“That will never change,
Maman
, until people learn they cannot laugh at us.”

“
M’enfant
, what does it matter? They laugh because they can do nothing else. The important thing is we are safe. You are crowned now, and blessed by God Himself.” Jacquetta fastened the last ruby button of her daughter’s gown. “No one dares harm us.”

Bess turned her cool green eyes on her mother. “No,
Maman
. Not until Edward is mine—
all mine
—will we be safe. When he turns away from his friends—from the Nevilles, from his brothers—then are we safe.”

“And when is that, Bess?” Jacquetta demanded, surprised again at her unpredictable daughter.

“When I have a child,
Maman
. If anything happens to Edward before I have a child, George will destroy us—but when I have a child, then are we safe. Then shall we settle old scores with our foes. Then shall Warwick rue the day he called my father a knave! A child will make Edward a puppet in my hands. A child— a
son
—’tis what we need, but why does one not come? I’ve been trying,
Maman
. Oh, how I’ve tried!”

“I have no doubt you will get your child soon, Bess. None of us is plagued with the barren condition, but for sure we can use the help of God. First, we will buy more prayers to win His favour. Then I shall consult Friar Bungey. His spells are said to be the most powerful. Meanwhile,
m’enfant
, you must endow a college. That is what queens do, and since it takes much money, God will look with favour on the sacrifice.”

She placed a hand on Bess’s arm. “But most important, Bess, remember: Use only soft words and sweet ways with the King. ’Tis unwise to demand from him. He is stubborn, that one. If you try to push him in one way, he will go in the other, like a mule. But if you accept everything, he will deny you nothing,
ma fille
.”

Bess peered at herself in the looking glass Jacquetta held. Carefully she rubbed cochineal paste into her high cheekbones. She lifted her chin.

“You need have no fear,
Maman
. I know how to manage Edward. I’m prepared to wait for my revenge, but I shall have what’s mine, though I walk through Hell to get it.”

A roaring cheer brought Jacquetta back to the present. She lifted her hands and clapped for the champion of the tournament, Lord Thomas Stanley. The stout bejewelled baron stepped up to claim his prize. Bess rose to award him the ruby. Jacquetta watched with approval as the powerful lord bowed most humbly to her daughter. The King watched, too, but he was gazing only at Bess, an adoring look in his brilliant blue eyes. Having fulfilled her duty, Bess sat back down in her velvet chair. Turning to her husband, she smiled shyly at him with lowered lashes.

Ah, indeed, we need have no fear
, Jacquetta thought. Her daughter was very clever.

~ * * * ~

“I found Him in the shining of the stars
I marked him in the flowering of His fields
But in His ways with men I find Him not.”

In the Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace, Richard waited by the gilded entrance, listening to the minstrels and watching guests assemble for the banquet. Plump bishops, their robes sewn with jewels and gold, conversed with lords richly arrayed in satins and fancy shoes, some with points so long they were caught up at the knee with golden chains. Ladies swept past, holding their fur-trimmed trains and nodding their headdresses in greeting. Their perfume assaulted his nostrils. He sneezed.

“Ah, Dickon,” said a gentle voice, “you’ve caught another cold and you’ve no handkerchief again.”

His sister Meg proceeded to wipe his nose. He pushed her away. “It’s not a cold, Meg, and I’m not a babe anymore.”

She drew her hand back awkwardly. “Pray forgive me, Dickon. Old habits die hard.”

“Well, indeed, they may,” said a high bright voice behind her with a trace of laughter. “But are you too grown now to give your long-lost sisters a kiss, Dickon?” It was his second-oldest sister, Liza, bouncing a toddler in her arms. “And your new nephew, Johnnie?”

Regretting his rudeness, Richard embraced Meg warmly, gave Liza a hug, and admired her first-born.

“Have you seen Nan?” inquired Liza, referring to their oldest sister. “I’ve been looking for her all evening. She hasn’t met my Johnnie yet either.”

“She’s over there, talking to St. Leger,” replied Meg.

Through an opening in the crowd, Richard saw his eldest sister standing by one of the many windows, deep in conversation with a knight. Richard had seen Nan but three times in all his life, which suited him well enough. He didn’t think his haughty sister liked him much, and he always found himself ill at ease and tongue-tied in her presence. Meg claimed Nan’s coldness was not personal, she was just bitter at having been abandoned by her husband, the Lancastrian Duke of Exeter, who’d fled to France with Marguerite d’Anjou. Richard wasn’t so sure. Guests milled between them and the opening closed like a folded spyglass.